What do you do when the waters change?

At Leading Through Storms, we actively encourage leaders to question the stories that society uses to make sense of the world. Perhaps the ‘consensus reality’ is an unhelpful façade that hides what’s actually going on? 

Chances are you’ve felt something like this too. An inkling, or nudge, or outright feelings of disbelief -- “Am I the only one seeing this?”

If so, you may find the dilemma in the following story familiar...

The Changing of the Waters

Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

From ‘Tales of the Dervishes’ by Idris Shah, Penguin Compass 1970

Have you ever felt like the all-too-sane “madman”?

Over the years, I’ve noticed how strongly this story resonates with me and many leaders who draw attention to the unpalatable - those things that are so far from the consensus reality that they, as a leader, are discredited and perceived as crazy.

I often wonder, who, really, is not prepared to listen to the fullness of the realities they are experiencing? It’s easy to look around us and point fingers, but it’s equally important to look at areas where I might be locking down unpalatable, inconvenient aspects of life.

(Recognise this situation?)

And it raises questions about what leadership looks like when the important context is outside of the consensus reality.

How is this for you?

How are you coping, if you are the leader who is pointing out the massive challenges we face? As society appears to collapse around us, as the physical environment becomes less hospitable to our ways of living? 

And how are you coping, if you are the leader who has the massive challenges pointed out to you?

These are all big, thorny questions, but until we’re willing to at least consider them, we’re going to be stuck in the madness of the changed waters.

But I’ve experienced one thing that really helps: connection. (But perhaps not how you think...)

Just like the man in the story, we’re social creatures. The pain of isolation is too much to bear, and it has serious health consequences. Which makes it incredibly tempting to subsume ourselves back into the consensus mainstream.

But there’s an alternative –– and that’s connecting with other people who see the madness for what it is. There may be far fewer of us than those in the mainstream, but we’re here. A small but robust group of people who see those disturbing but so-true thoughts, ordinary leaders who are also filled with restless energies to change the world.

And the more we connect with those others who understand that the world may be different to how it seems, and that maybe there’s an alternative way of being, the more your leadership has a chance to grow.

These are all questions and avenues we explore at Leading Through Storms, so if you’ve felt like the only one of a few sane people in your area for a while, we should talk.

Please leave a comment below, book a discovery call with one of us, and / or join us online on 5th September, or in person, in London on the afternoon of 10th November for connection and community exploration with fellow curious and action-oriented leaders.